Country-of-Origin Effect and Consumer Ethnocentrism: The Brand Perception of Romanian Consumers of a Danish Beer Brand

Introduction

International marketing research has long been concerned with examining whether consumers prefer domestic products, as opposed to foreign products and how the country of origin of the foreign product is perceived (Evanschitzky et al., 2008). Marketing scholars have also long argued that the cause of the appearance of country-of-origin (COO) effect can be found in consumer ethnocentrism (CE) (Stoltman et al., 1991; Lantz & Loeb, 1996; Lee & Ganesh, 1999; Chryssochoidis et al., 2007; Ding, 2016). There has also been substantial research interest in country-of-origin effects on foreign and domestic brands (Klein et al., 1998; Balabanis & Diamantopoulus, 2004; Liu & Johnson, 2005; Verlegh et al., 2005; Hong & Kang, 2006; Maheswaran & Chen 2006; Pappu et al., 2007).

Recent studies in the field of the country-of-origin effect and ethnocentric perceptions show consumer behavioural tendencies not only towards local and foreign products in general but more specifically brands (Kinra, 2006; Chryssochoidis et al., 2007; Ferguson et al., 2008; Alden et al. 2013; Guo 2013). Kinra (2006) for example investigated the Indian consumers’ attitudes towards local and foreign brands and found that foreign brands were perceived as being more reliable and safe than local brands, thus displaying a low level of ethnocentric tendencies. On the other hand, some scholars suggested that CE has no influence on the COO effect (Yagci, 2001; Sharma, 2011). For example Sharma (2011) investigated the role of CE in COO effects for consumers from the USA and the UK with regard to cars and found that ethnocentrism does not interact with COO and has a weak negative effect on the consumers’ product evaluation and behavioural intentions for imported products. On the other hand, Ding (2017) examined whether consumer ethnocentrism in China is prevalent and its impact on Chinese consumers’ product preferences between local and foreign products. He found that Chinese consumers display a low level of ethnocentric tendency, but that CE did affect product preferences amongst Chinese consumers and that the availability of domestic alternative is a key factor that cannot be ignored.